Splatsin is one of five First Nations in BC to pilot Family Spirit® program and intergenerational play spaces
Sabrina Vergata gently bounces her nine-month-old daughter Lila on her knee, sitting in the cultural yard of the Splatsin Tsm7aksaltn (Splatsin Teaching Centre) Society near Enderby, BC. It's the yard where all four of Sabrina's children learn about their culture and Secwepemctsin language as part of the daycare programming.
“For us, especially here in Splatsin, we've really lost a lot of our culture," says Vergata, sharing that intergenerational trauma has impacted many First Nations families' abilities to pass on cultural teachings, including her own. “I'm at a point where I want to incorporate as much culture into my life and my family's life as possible because I want my children to grow up proud of who they are, and I didn't get that."
Sabrina and Lila are one of seven Splatsin families currently receiving culturally relevant, evidence-based home visiting support through the Family Spirit® pilot program. The program includes weekly visits from a community-based health educator teaching First Nations mothers 65 lessons taught from pregnancy to age three, with plans for an expanded curriculum through age five.
“One of the things I constantly struggled with was breastfeeding," Vergata shares. “My oldest one, I didn't get to breastfeed her for very long, maybe less than a month, due to financial issues and not having proper resources. So, this time around, with the help of the Family Spirit® program, I was able to get that help for breastfeeding."
Splatsin is one of five First Nations communities in BC piloting the Family Spirit® program, supported in partnership by First Nations Health Authority (FNHA), Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health and the LEGO Foundation. Collectively referred to as the 'LEGO Spirit Project,' the five-year initiative adopts the US-based curriculum created by Johns Hopkins to fit the needs of First Nations families in BC.
“The program has brought so much confidence with the mothers I work with. Knowing what they're doing with their babies, knowing that they're doing a good job, knowing that they have somebody from the community standing behind them and cheering them on [is so important]," says Jeena Pasacreta who is an Aboriginal Infant Development Support worker and LEGO Spirit Home Educator at Splatsin Tsm7aksaltn who received the Family Spirit® program training.
“I've never felt more fulfilled in a job in my entire life," Pasacreta says.
In addition to the home-visiting portion of the project, each of the pilot communities are building “nature-based intergenerational play spaces" as a recipient of the LEGO Foundation Build a World of Play Challenge. The play spaces can be anything the community dreams up, designed to reflect local Indigenous languages, traditions and connection to land.
Next year, Splatsin Tsm7aksaltn plans to use the funding to expand the cultural yard and build a traditional kekuli, or pithouse, where children, parents and Elders can share in cultural stories and teachings.
“There has been such a huge influx of wanting to connect back to our traditional ways, where that has almost been a touch point of shame around here with people afraid to wear their ribbon skirts in public because there are so many stigmas," says Pasacreta, proudly wearing her ribbon skirt. “There's just so much more excitement around how this has bled into the community in such a beautiful way."
The other communities in BC piloting the Family Spirit® program include Quw'utsun (Cowichan Tribes), L'il̓wat7úl (Lil'wat First Nation), Sq'ewqéyl (Skowkale First Nation), and Tawlang Ga Tlaayds, Niislaa Naay Healing House Society Gaw Tlagée (Haida Gwaii). There are more than twenty Indigenous communities in total piloting the program globally from Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
This July 13 – 18, FNHA will host the Family Spirit® international gathering for the first time.
“If this program was offered to every single household in all our communities, I think that it would be so beneficial to the healing process that all First Nations are going through. I could really see it speeding up that healing process and helping our children grow up healthy and breaking the different cycles that each generation is trying to break on their own," says Vergata.
“I can't explain how important I think it would be to see this program be more widescale," she says.
